Malegaon one year after the September Blasts

Wednesday September 08, 2007, Aleem Faizee

When the Malegaonians woke up to September 08, 2006, it was not an ordinary day but was a Shab-e-Barat coinciding with a Friday. Consequently, everyone was in a festive mood and had planned new cloths for the day. The women and the children were more ecstatic, they had applied the Hena on their hands the previous night itself. Excited and unaware of what actually was in store for them in the afternoon, they were anxiously waiting for the evening.

And then in just few minutes at around 01:55 in the afternoon everything vanished. “The Imam had completed the Friday prayers in the mosque inside the Qabristan and people were gearing up for Sunnah, the optional prayer after the obligatory prayers, when two bombs exploded one after the other”, recalls Kamran Asim whose son was injured in the blasts.

Series of Blasts inside the Qabristan

“Before I could understand anything and feel the pains of my own wounds, I found my cousin tumbling on the ground”, recalls 13-year old Faisal referring to his cousin, Ashar Malik, who was just nine when died in last year’s blasts. “Having seen us standing helplessly near Ashar, a man came, picked him up in his arms and rushed towards the main gate of the Qabristan”, Faisal continues, “The last words that I had heard from him was ‘Mujhe Mere Ghar Le Chalo, I live at Nayapura Gali No.1”, he completes somehow and then broke into tears.

Along with Ashar Malik, the blasts in Qabristan had taken many more innocent lives.

Just few minutes after this twin-blast one more bomb exploded, this time at Mushawerat Chowk, around 500 meters away from Qabristan.

The Scene at Mushawerat Chowk

“While we were going to the Qabristan as we do every Friday, we saw many people coming from opposite sides, carrying the blast victims on whatever means they found accessible. It was when we were crossing each other that a bomb exploded here at Mushawerat Chowk”, recalls Shafeeque Ahmed, who had lost his son Sajid, an MBBS aspirant, in this blast. “Along with my son, the blast had killed some who had escaped the death trap at Qabristan”, he adds.

Utter Chaos in Every Hospital

People rushed the victims to nearby Noor and Faran Hospitals and when it became impossible to treat the victims in these hospitals, people took them to Vaidya and Medicare Hospitals located in the later half of the city.

However, although there was chaos in almost every hospital of the city, peace prevailed large in the city. “I found people standing on the two sides of the roads allowing us to carry the victims smoothly”, recalls Kamran Asim.

When the whole Malegaon came to standstill

With blast victims on their shoulders, the Malegaonians demonstrated sheer communal harmony. Rarely had the city seen Hindus and Muslims coming out on roads in such a large number and in unison for support.

And then after the postmortem at around ten late in the evening, the funerals of the deceased started towards its course. The whole city was shaking with grief. The new cloths remained untouched. The women and children hated to look at their Hena-imprinted hands. Still, unprecedented calm prevailed all over the city and the most excruciating moment came when the farewell journey of four victims belonging to the same family started from Nayapura. “Even after one year, the moment still haunts me. It seems to me Jaise Kal Ki Bat Ho”, says Shafeeque Ahmed while he failed in controlling his tears.

…And the Blasts Changed the Face of Malegaon

Even before the September 08, 2006 Serial Blasts, Malegaon remained in the headlines though most of the times for the bad reasons. And the reason? It is the series of communal riots that has earned the town a bad name not only in the country but all over the world. And the credit for this also goes to some sections of the media that, more or less, concentrates on the negative sides of the town more than the virtues of the city and its residents. Even now the tag of the city ‘being a communally sensitive place’ is haunting the Malegaonians and wherever they go they are greeted with, Oh! From Malegaon, Sab Theek to Hai? Bahut Riots Hote Hain Waha, Nahi?”

This doesn’t stop here; the Malegaonians paid such a heavy price for this fabricated image that they remained backward while their counterparts in cities like Nashik, Jalgaon and Aurangabad continue to flourish in every sense. “Whenever we invite the industrialists for investing in Malegaon, they decline out of fear and uncertainty that reportedly prevail in the town all the time,” says Swapnil Kotahri, an industrialist who has taken the plastic industry in Malegaon to new heights despite the challenging conditions.

Interestingly, many reports after the last year’s blasts also suggested that they were aimed at exploiting this very image of the town, also, the perpetrators reportedly believed that the blasts would ultimately end in a communal violence and the Malegaonians would respond in the same way as some people had reacted after the Godhra incident in Gujarat.

However, fortunately for them, the Malegaonians remained peaceful after the tragedy and the credit for the peace, beyond any doubt, goes to the Malegaonians, the very people of Malegaon who lived for years with the burden of being prejudiced, intolerant and sometimes even as anti-national. Even more fortunately for them, this resulted in an unexpected reward and by remaining peaceful, they not only received the praise from all over the country but the incident that could have been a final blow to the already beleaguered town and dying textile industry, helped in highlighting the real issues facing the people and hiding under the debris of scores of communal riots.

Though it took the sacrifice of more than thirty precious lives for the Government to come to this conclusion and it has started the construction work of the 200 bed hospital simultaneously promising a package for the development of the town, for the Malegaonians, there still remains a long fight ahead for the overall revival.

Moreover the observers believe this is probably the only chance for the Malegaonians to take advantage of the favorable situation. “By remaining peaceful after the blasts, the Malegaonians have earned the favor of the Government and this is one last chance for them to make use of this opportunity. And how to do that, is of course in their own hands”, Sushobha Barve, an activist who is heading a NGO has observed recently while speaking with this correspondent.

Whole Govt. comes to the town

The next morning, it was as if the whole Government, State as well as Centre, was there in Malegaon. While Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was there with half a dozen Ministers, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi herself came with Home Minister Shivraj Patil and other colleagues from Delhi. Sonia, apart from meeting the families of the victims, also met the local community leaders. They expressed their displeasures over the compensation amount and inadequate availability of the medical facilities in the town. And probably on Sonia’s behest, the Government promised several packages for the overall development of the town.

However, one year after the blasts, a look at the promises made by the Government reveals that, despite vigorous follow ups, many of the promises are gathering the dust in Government offices.

Identical Tragedies, Different Compensations

Citing the example of the Mumbai Blasts where the Government had announced a compensation of five lakhs along with Government job to the victims’ family, the Malegaonians sought the equal treatment for them. And when their repeated pleas were taken with deaf ears by the State, they turned to the Central Government, which announced the compensation of additional one lakh rupees but failed in giving any kind of assurances for the Government jobs.

Today, though the families of the victims have received the amount promised by the State, they are still struggling for getting the equal amount promised by the Centre. “And since most of the victims were the only earning hands for their families, their families are forced to live under miserable conditions with their children being forcibly dropped from the schools”, observes Advocate Niyaz Lodhi.

Civil Hospital

It is ironic that a city of over half a million people lacks a single Government Hospital with adequate medical facilities. Many believed if there was a good hospital in place as promised by Vilasrao Deshmukh after October 2001 riots, it could have saved many precious lives. At least this time, the Malegaonians are lucky that the sacrifice of their innocent sons has earned them a hospital.

And if Amol Ghule, the Project Manager belonging to M/s VM Matere, is to be believed, they would be completing the 74.4 million hospital building by March 11, 2008. “However, once the building is complete, there still remains many more things to be done before the hospital is fully ready for the actual functioning”, observes Dinesh Jadhav, the Project In charge.

Dearth of Basic Amenities Continues

“No roads, no proper sanitation and the problems in plenty, I had never seen such a place in my whole life”, Dr. Sayyeda Hameed, Member Planning Commission had remarked after visiting Malegaon. Shocked, she asserted to lend a helping hand for the revival of the town. She chaired several meetings in Delhi for this purpose and on her repeated requests the State reiterated it’s committed for the development of Malegaon.

However, despite big claims, when the State recently launched the New Industrial Policy, there was nothing for the Malegaonians in that. At the same time, the civic body itself is in such a financial crunch now that it has no money to pay even its employees’ salary. And the Malegaonians, as it happened in the past, are probably waiting for yet another tragedy to happen for reminding the hapless leaders of the promises they had kept a year before.

(Nashik Times)

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